Brawler 409
by Tarrsk
Summary: Lieutenant Pol Arin, engaged in a routine patrol, finds himself face-to-face with a massive Core army.


**Brawler 409**  
By Tarrsk

_Total Annihilation_ copyright 1997 by Cavedog Entertainment; designed by Chris Taylor

* * *

"Brawler 409, you are out of position." 

An insistent voice roused Lieutenant Pol Arin out of his thoughts. He'd been thinking again, something that never ceased to depress him, as his thoughts always drifted back to the same event. He'd watched it in his mind hundreds of times, remembering the houses going up in flame, massive assault tanks crushing civilians under their treads, artillery shells ripping stores and warehouses apart. And the most painful part of all- a massive Core Hellfire-class tank lumbering past his family's homestead. The Hellfire had turned its turret back and forth, seeking out targets, methodically firing as such targets presented themselves. One farmer had managed to dent the side of the tank rather heavily by ramming it with his tractor just before he himself was shot by a passing A.K. The Hellfire continued on its course, reaching the simple dwelling emblazoned with a sign reading "The Arins." Firing three sharp red bolts. Vaporizing the only place in the galaxy dear to him as it just as inexorably ran down his father, gleefully smashing him into a bloody mess under its razor-sharp treads. Pol had barely escaped with his life, dragged to safety by his older brother, a member of the local Arm militia corps. A quiet fury had taken him that day. He had immediately joined the Arm pilot corps, swearing to take from the Core what they had taken from him. His initial testing had proved him to have extremely high reflexes and the ability to take G-forces up to an amazing 18 G's. Three months before his basic training ended, he had been plucked out and placed into advanced pilot training. Two years later, he was a Lieutenant, with more than his fair share of combat kills and a well-known ability to fly any craft in the Arm air force with unsurpassed skill, be it a supersonic stealth fighter or a lumbering Atlas transport.

"Sorry, sir. I was distracted for a moment..." Pol's voice trailed off as his radar display suddenly blipped, and three hazy red dots appeared on the edge of the screen. The red dots just as quickly disappeared. He frowned. Setting the gunship on autopilot for a moment, he flipped power over to his scanner arrays and focused them in the direction of the mysterious radar blips. His onboard computer beeped again and the three dots reappeared, then faded away.

"Commander! I think I saw something!"

"What? Get back in formation, Lieutenant."

"No, sir. I'm serious. Three hostile radar blips at point-oh-five Mark four. They appeared for just a moment."

Commander Joneston's voice suddenly sharpened. "Point-oh-five? That's from the direction of the Galactic Gate... Arin, Coons, Srul, go check it out. If there are Core forces out there, DO NOT engage them. Return and report."

"Yes, sir." Arin banked on one wing and headed off in the direction of the Gate, taking left wing for Peeper 884, Coons, while his wingmate, Mark Srul, took right wing. The Peeper announced that his radar was on full power. A few seconds later, Pol heard a surprised exclamation.

"Holy-! Sir, for just a moment I picked up a total of 86 hostiles on my sensor board!"

Joneston cursed over the mike. "We don't have nearly the power to take out any Core army that size." That was an understatement, Pol thought. A war games force of 2 Brawlers, a Peeper, one Commander, two Bulldogs, an Eraser-class jamming Kbot, and 20 assorted level-1 tanks and Kbots would be hard-pressed to survive any such enemy attack, even if it consisted entirely of A.K. bots.

While Joneston called the base for reinforcements, Pol was told to take over command temporarily. He ordered Srul to his wing and commanded the pair of PeeWee scouts to head for a ridge or hill for reconnaissance. He quickly set up a loose defensive formation which, he hoped, would be enough to hold back the invaders until reinforcements arrived.

Four minutes later, the first Core units arrived right into the kill zone that Pol had set up in a valley. The concentrated fire of twenty combat units on one target turned the vanguard of the Core army into ash in moments. The flaming remains of a Pulsar-class tank tumbled onto the ground, lighting the ground foliage on fire in some places.

The next four Core kbots almost ran straight into the scorched wreckages of their former companions, and were destroyed in turn by plasma volleys. Obviously, the Core was stunned by this sudden appearance of Arm defense. Their attempted ambush had been ambushed in turn, and the surprise was causing the Core Commander precious seconds of battle control. This became further obvious as the next two units through were both highly expensive (but lightly armored) Crock amphibious tanks. Both were flattened in short order by the pair of Bulldogs, which had positioned themselves right in the front line. A Core Deleter was next. As Mark Srul arced over it, he triggered his EMGs, their distinctive flares slamming into the radar jammer and shredding its outer shell. Pol was right behind him, firing a second round of energy that hit the Deleter's internal power plant. The Core jammer truck went up in a glorious ball of fire, and suddenly the radar screens flashed with the signature of nearly one hundred enemy units. The Core Commander must have finally figured out what was happening for just as suddenly, a horde of tanks and kbots swarmed into the valley- far too many for the small Arm force to take on by themselves.

Pol pulled a triple loop that left him dizzy, then pulled up in a sharp climb that flipped him right onto the tail of the obviously inexperienced Avenger that had been trying to tail him. Amateur, he thought remorselessly, as he depressed the trigger on his stick and sent bolts of incandescent death into the wildly dodging fighter. One wing shorn entirely off, the smoking Avenger spiraled out of the sky, smashing into the ground with enough force to crumple the front of the armored VTOL into an unrecognizable lump. Pol quickly selected another target, a Pyro, its flamethrower randomly setting trees ablaze. Flame spurted from the nozzle of the Pyro's weapon, the plasma gel adhering to the metal armor of a nearby Flash tank and melting into the side of it. The Flash started to turn its turret, preparing to fire back. Just as the Flash's first round sizzled into the Pyro's left leg, a huge footpad smashed the Flash flat. A subdued explosion erupted around the massive footpad as scrapped Flash parts and engine coolant sprayed in all directions. A collective gasp of horror arose from the Arm troops as they looked up, and up, and up...

A Core Krogoth had arrived.

The monstrous Kbot stomped forward almost haughtily, firing its powerful gauss cannons indiscriminately. One, two, three Arm units were incinerated by the rapidly firing dual guns. Most of the surviving Arm forces were desperately focusing their fire on the Krogoth now, all except Commander Joneston, who was busy fighting off a squad of Freakers. His D-gun blasts echoed throughout the battlefield as he mercilessly blasted Kbot after Kbot.

Meanwhile, Srul and Arin were having trouble. The Krogoth's dreaded anti-air missiles were now constantly firing, screaming out of the launch tubes and forcing the pilots to break hard in random directions to escape. Peeper 884 had been shot down by the first three missiles to be launched, blown out of the sky by three simultaneous detonations. The remaining Brawlers were covering each other, destroying missiles that got too close to the others, and pumping EMG round after EMG round into the Krogoth.

"Brawler 582! Srul! Watch yourself there!"

"What? What?"

"Two missiles on your tail... got one... look out, Mark!"

"I see it! Going evasive... now!"

A single missile fired by the Krogoth went berserk. Its programming crashed, its target aquisition subroutines gone whacko, it circled aimlessly. At the same time, Srul was pulling every trick he knew in an attempt to outmaneuver the missile that had locked onto him. He darted towards the Krogoth, letting loose a fusillade of EMG fire, then broke left at the last moment. His gambit succeeded as the missile tried to turn too late and slammed into the Krogoth's main turret. The missile detonated on impact, blowing a hole the size of a PeeWee in the front of the Krogoth's head. The giant's laser was now out of commission. Enraged, the Krogoth began blindly firing its missiles in all directions.

"Yeaaaaaaah! Did you see that? Did you see that? Pol!!" Srul's joyous shout was cut off. The errant Krogoth missile had circled right into his ammunition bays. It punched through the belly armor of the Brawler before exploding, and then set off all of the stored EMG rounds in the bays in its fiery death. The entire gunship blew apart. Burning bits tinkled out of the sky. The flaming cockpit of the Brawler slowly tumbled into a Goliath tank's turret, instantly destroying both the cockpit and the tank.

Pol looked on in horror. He felt an unstoppable anger take hold and grip his heart in a fist of steel. Screaming obscenities, he turned towards the Core killer on all three axes, fingers holding down his gun triggers as he hosed streams of energy into the Krogoth's body. Arin fired and fired and fired, ignorant of his own safety, only seeing the hated embodiment of Core arrogance in front of his viewport. He didn't care that his EMG rounds were really doing very little damage to the war machine. He just knew that he had to eat away at it, so that the Krogoth would understand some of the molten pain he was feeling.

"Brawler 409..."

Joneston's whisper startled Pol from his reverie. He looked around his cockpit in confusion for a moment, the flames of anger doused suddenly. Then he saw his Commander. The Krogoth had cornered Joneston, who was surrounded on the other three sides by mountainous cliffs. Both of the Commander's legs had been slagged, and damage scoring had all but erased the Arm emblem that had been painted on his chestplate. The right arm, with its D-gun, was a partially melted, sparking mess, and the left was sputtering feebly as its mounted laser cannon occasionally sent bolts searing into the Krogoth's chest.

Pol Arin sent his gunship racing towards his Commander at top speed. As he curved over a low hill, the huge, implacable back of the Krogoth rose up in front of him. He saw where a Bulldog shell had ripped a hole in its side, exposing raw circuitry underneath. Adrenaline surged through Pol as he targeted the wound, triggering rounds of EMG fire into it as soon as he entered weapons range. He would not let another friend and comrade die today- not if he had anything to do with it. He would force them to kill him before he let that happen.

The Krogoth spun its mostly melted head around, the few remaining visual sensors noting the Arm gunship firing constantly. It methodically placed its target brackets on the irritating Brawler and activated a pair of missiles from its rear launchers. At this close range, Pol would have no chance to evade them. A grim satisfaction entered the Krogoth's mind as it launched the missiles.

Tried to launch the missiles, anyway.

The back-mounted missile launchers exploded will earth-shaking force, sending the Krogoth to its knees. Pol stared in amazement, then smiled as he saw Joneston's surviving arm lower from where it had been aiming at the distracted Krogoth's back.

"Come on, kid. It's your shot now," came Joneston's voice over the comlink. Pol looped around the battlefield, coming in for a clean run on the Krogoth's open wound, the circuitry now melted and holed. He carefully aimed both of the gunship's cannons right where one of his blasts had opened a way into the Krogoth's main reactor.

He fired.

An enormous explosion thundered through the battlefield, vaporizing two Weasels who had come too close and knocking Joneston's Commander suit onto its back. The Core forces suddenly seemed to quail, their Commander stunned by the destruction of his destroyer bot. Then, to Pol's surprise, the massive Core army started to retreat, despite still outnumbering the Arm troops by five to one. A cheer from the beleaguered Arm forces arose, but Pol didn't understand exactly why until a massive shell literally smashed a fleeing Instigator into the ground. Shocked, he turned his gunship around on one wing, and saw something that made his heart soar. The reinforcements had arrived.

Hundreds of Arm units were storming into the battlezone. The Luger artillery unit that had flattened the Instigator took a position at the rear of the formation, continuing to arc its anti-sliver shells into the Core army that was now running for their lives. Three fresh construction Kbots had been flown in by Atlas, and were repairing the heavily damaged Commander. More and more Arm units arrived, until the last Core unit was gone. Applause rang over the comm as the new forces saluted those dead who had held their positions to the very end.

Pol landed his Brawler in the primary Arm base several hours later, exhausted and drained from both the battle and helping Commander Joneston set up a huge firebase in the valley. He was halfway down the ladder before he noticed the collected Arm troops, all wearing their dress uniforms and in neat formation, waiting. Commander Joneston was standing in the front of the crowd. Wordlessly, he took a small case from his right breast pocket, opened it, and pulled out the full Commander rank tab that was nestled inside. An overwhelming cheer filled the Arm base as Joneston pulled off Pol's Lieutenant's insignia and carefully pinned the new rank tab where it had been.

"Congratulations, Commander," he said softly. Then, he smiled, and shook Pol's hand. He stepped back, and the troops cheered again as their new Commander grinned in embarrassment.


End file.
